This workspace has been made available for community members to post their GAC related questions. The deadline for posting questions/comments to this workspace will be 28 February 2014 23:59 UTC.
Is the GAC satisfied with the design of the Public Interest Commitment protocols, and ICANN's implementation, as sufficient to protect the public interest in the realm of the gTLD expansion?
2 Comments
Evan Leibovitch
Perhaps to expand upon the above item and brings into account recent events:
The At-Large Community notes, with discomfort, the ICANN Board NGPC's response to GAC advice on public-interest issues related to strings associated with regulated and sensitive sectors (referred to in GAC advice as "Category 1"). Indeed, many in the At-Large Community have indicated general dissatisfaction with the Public Interest Commitment process, believing it to be too limiting, and placing far too much burden on public authorities and those impacted by abuse. Some in our community believe the PIC regime as a whole to be unenforceable and thus worthless in regard to propecting the public interest.
A number of members of the Business Community as well as from within At-Large are developing the concept of Public Advisory Boards for Category 1 strings, to reduce the burden on governments and regulators, while ensuring that fraud and confusion are minimized in areas in which public trust is criitical.
We encourage the GAC to continue to press for stronger safeguards in trust-sensitive strings, and wish to explore the possibility of joint activity between the GAC and ALAC on this issue, similar to our successful collaboration on Applicant Support. We are also interest to know the receptiveness of GAC members to a Public Advisory Board model for Category 1 strings.
Alan Greenberg
As a follow-on to Evan's issue,there are strong messages being sent that the Board may choose not to implement PABs.
If that turns out to be the case, we need to ensure that, particularly for sensitive-string TLDs, the PICs be incorporated into contracts, not unilaterally changed by the registry and are enforced by ICANN without the need to use the Dispute Resolution Procedure.